


Nothing Left Behind

by Mayloc



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17094554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayloc/pseuds/Mayloc
Summary: Clintasha after the snap. Inspired by their first scene we got in the new Avengers 4 trailer ;)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been a Clintasha fan, even after The Age of Ultron and all the dissapointment that it was, and I've always wanted to write something about them. I don't know if this will be a proper story yet, but after the new Avengers 4 trailer, I got some inspiration from the scene they share. Hope you like it :) Spoilers about Clint's new identity just in case.

The rain was soaking her hands while she was searching for her umbrella inside her bag. Nat felt a shiver when she finally grabbed the small object and opened it with her wet and cold fingers before she started walking down the street.

It was a moonless night and the city was utterly still and quiet despite the flickering lights, just like any other city in any other country in the world since Thanos decided to play his cruel game with the Universe and everyone else lost.

The thought burned her throat once again as she swallowed it, along with her guilty and her frustration.

They had lost _. The Avengers_. The ones that existed solely _to protect_ people had lost, and now the team was just a sad memory.

_“You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why?_

Why indeed.

_What did Loki do to you?”_

Nat felt another shiver and she pulled her coat collar up around her neck, even when she knew that uncomfortable feeling had nothing to do with the cold and rainy night.

Loki was a child. Tony always said that he was the starter but there were greater wars after Loki, and that first alien invasion felt mostly a joke now. Even Ultron and his megalomania was a simply shadow of the real, _cosmic_ danger. Through those years, the humanity had to learn how to fight after every fight, how to be ready. And yet, when the moment came they hadn’t be. Thanos was a whole new league and they had failed.

After that fatal snap and the chaos that followed, the ones that remained _present_ had been working nonstop to bring some sanity back to the world, then again the truth was that the hopelessness was too much for everybody. Every single person had lost someone they loved, if not _everyone._ The Earth was still spinning and their lives were stubbornly on despite the massive tragedy, but they were all empty inside. Even Steve and his incorrupt brilliant heart, especially Steve.

And now, _maybe…_

Nat shook her head trying to focus on her mission. Because she had a mission _. Right._ And she really hadn’t had one since that day. Not a proper mission at least. Not one that really mattered to her.

_“What did Loki do to you?”_

Something hit her hip hard when she turned around the corner, and the contact awakened all her senses at once. Her Japanese was still quite good after all those years, and she could understand a quick apology before looking down. There was a tiny old lady in a rush with a huge fruit basket, and she was losing small watermelons here and there.

When Nat tried to help her, the old lady refused jabbering. She understood two more words before the woman disappeared muttering inside of a dirty doorway surprisingly fast.

 _Run_ and then _danger_.

Well, she was definitely on the right track.

Nat was still looking at that empty doorway when she heard the quiet sound of cutting steel approaching from behind right before moving her head slightly to the left.

A throwing star had almost cut her ear in its way to get stuck in that dirty door.

“How rude.”

Her eyebrow rose.

_Yakuza._

She felt the familiar tickling of the adrenaline pumping through her body and all the coldness disappeared.

Nat turned around, tracing the direction of the flying star back with her eyes. The fight was right there, just a couple of steps forward from where she was standing. Three members of the Japanese mafia and one hooded figure dancing between the shadows. Three against one.

_Bingo._

Another object flew fast through the air right at her, and this time she had to hang her head down to avoid the lethal impact. It was a perfect sharp knife that Nat kept it for herself in her left wristband along with her own stiletto. She wasn’t there to fight- at least, not by choice-, but old habits were hard to dismiss.

When she focused her attention on the combat again, one of the Japanese fighters was falling hard and lifeless on the road. The second one was already a dead body, his blood mixing with the soaking rain and forming a dark red river down the sidewalk. Now it was a one-on-one fight.

The member of the yakuza that was still breathing had a very impressive combat technique, both with and without his katana, but her eyes were focus on the skills of that mystery man.

She was looking for a mercenary.

And she was there to recruit him.

Code name: _Ronin._

A lone warrior paid by the USA government to resolve its most dirty business. They couldn’t find anything more about his or her identity – although now it was clear that it was a _he_ – but they had found out about his efficiency and also, they knew that soldier was somehow _operational._ Whether or not he was still working for the United States or for any government at all, was unclear.

Nat was there to make an offer, simple as that. Scott Lang had reappeared, and now they were willing to play one last crazy card against Thanos. They needed all the help they could get, and she could be really persuasive.

The Japanese fighter was seriously wounded at that point and Ronin finished the fight shortly with a clean and final blow that came with a succinct but angry cry. Then, he just stayed there with his back to her, cleaning his katana and letting the rain fall hard upon him.

In her experience, mercenaries had a very special way of killing. Precise, dispassionate and above all, not personal. Nothing in the way that masked swordsman was acting said un-personal to her, and that was certainly confusing.

“You have to leave.”

Nat took a step back.

The words sounded a bit distorted through the hood, but she knew that voice well enough to made all the air in her lungs disappear- because the owner of that voice had disappeared too, along with half of the population three years ago.

“Clint?”

It was the first thing she checked after the last battle. His house arrest was finally over and Clint was now retired from _the hero bussiness_ since he didn't sign the Sokovia Accords. But his house was painfully empty and neither Clint nor his family were nowhere to be found.

“You have to leave now.”

After a moment of disorientation Nat took some steps forward, dismissing the confusion she was feeling. _Ronin_ took off his hood and he finally turned around to look at her.

When their eyes met, her heart crushed under the weight of that look.

_“What did Loki do to you?”_

There were no enchanted blue eyes this time, but the emptiness she found there was the same of that day.

She took a few more steps in his direction, fighting against the suddenly need of running towards him.

“You are alive.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Nat hit him hard in his stupid face, her entire body shaking. Clint just clenched his jaw as a response.

“You let me believe you were gone.”

He waited an agonic moment before answering, his expression hardening.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

Nat was feeling still disoriented, and she was about to ask what the hell he was talking about when the understanding came to her all of a sudden.

There were no arrows. Clint never had fought without his arrows before.

She was looking at _Ronin._ A lonely warrior, a mercenary that killed on demand and _by choice_.

The simple concept was the opposite of Clint Barton. A soldier like that, was usually someone that had nothing to lose, or someone that had already lost everything.

_His house was empty._

Nat shook her head. She extended his hand toward his, barely touching his gloved fingers- but after a second of contact, Clint moved away and turned his back on her while walking away.

“Wait. Clint…”

The umbrella fell from her trembling hands as she started following him. Some tears she couldn’t control were tightening her throat and mixing with the rain that was falling through her face.

“Stay away, Natasha. This had nothing to do with you.”

_Nothing?_

She took a deep breath.

“We believe we can fix it.”

Clint laugh bitterly for a moment.

“Of course.”

 He didn’t sound surprised or even curious about the possibilities, but she tried anyway.

“We think there’s a way to…”

“So you wanna go back in time now or what?”

Now she heard rage- _Don't waste my time. Don't you dare to give me hope._

“It’s…complicated.”

Clint stopped and turned around to look at her in all his coldness, that awful look in his eyes.

“Hope is a luxury that I can’t afford.”

And then, before she could say anything else, he was gone.

The coldness attacked her soaked body mercilessly in that very moment, and Nat almost lost her balance. She walked stumbling to the portal where the ninja star was still stuck and she curled up into a ball there.

Her fingers moved by instinct to her neck to make contact with the cold metal. Right there, underneath her shirt was her most precious possession: a silver necklace with a small arrow in the center.

Nat knew damn well that a spy _must not_ carry any sign of identity, but for a long time, that little arrow was the only thing that kept her sane.

That was after Clint were send to kill her and before she lived her very first hell with him in Budapest.

_“So, what's the plan?”_

_“We keep moving.”_

Nat put her necklace back under her cloths and she stood up with determination. She needed to focus. She had found Clint once and Nat knew it wouldn’t be that easy the second time, but she would find him again and he would come back home with her.

_“Where are we going?”_

_“Anywhere but forward. There’s nothing left for us here.”_

They will play their last crazy card together.

_“We keep moving.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I decided to write more Clintasha apparently (Avengers Endgame trailer 2 was just great for them). In this story, three years had passed since the snap, and we'll learn one thing or two about Budapest. Hope you enjoy it :)

Clint couldn’t see her the second night he went on a mission but he knew she was there. He didn’t even try to change his safe house or his _work schedule_ to hide from her tracking. Sooner or later Natasha was going to find him anyway and Clint didn’t want to waste any extra time. He was there to make a job and he did it efficiently. When the assignment was done, Clint walked away without looking back.

_Almost._

The third night, he got distracted. He saw a young woman with her child running scared from his own fight and, for a moment, part of his family was there: his wife and his little boy running away from him.

_“We can fix it.”_

_Damn you, Natasha._

His mind went blank until he felt a metallic thud right to the side of his knee. When Clint looked down, he saw the death body of a young assassin lying at his feet, his chest sliced by a knife that it wasn’t his.

_Shit._

Once he turned around, Natasha was gone.

His hands were shaking.

The fourth night he got hurt. A fucking ninja star got stuck in his right arm the moment his last opponent bite the ground, and it burned like hell. When he tried to strip it from his skin, somehow it just went deeper.

_Fuck._

Clint was bleeding against a cold wall in yet another dark and dusty alley, and it kind of felt like a _déjà vu_. During the last three years, every mission had been the same. The darkness, the rain, the blood. But somehow, the abandoned streets and the demolished houses made him feel less lonely. The certainty that he wasn’t the only one misplaced, the anger that cramped his muscles and the temporary relief he was feeling every time he made another assassin disappear. And then the guilt for not have been enough to save his family.  

The anger, the guilt, the loneliness. The holy trinity that was feeding his soul, even if he doubted there was anything left inside him aside from emptiness after three years carrying all that blood in his hands.

“Don’t touch it. You will make the wound bigger.”

But now Natasha was there, stepping in front of him between the shadows- _she always had been there before the snap -_ and Clint knew that the pain he was feeling was not caused by the sharp metal that was stuck in his skin.

“This has to stop. _Now_.”

She let her eyebrow rose.

“What it has to stop exactly? Me saving your ass?”

Clint grunted.

“I don’t need your help and you shouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Yet, he let her examine the wound.

“You are here, I’m here.”

Clint was well aware of that. Natasha’s presence in the middle of his mess was affecting him whether he liked it or not, and he had been a fool for thinking otherwise. He had to hold back another grunt when she tentatively moved the damn ninja star.

“I can’t remove it from your arm just like that. I need some light and some instruments. The wound has to be cauterized properly if you don’t wanna bleed out.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

Nat smirked at him.

“Your place or mine?”

If he could, he'd had hated her in that very moment. He hated that she was able to bring his usual self back _just that easily_ even after all that it had happened – the one that it had been vanished along with his family, the one that it didn’t exist no more because it had been replaced by Ronin.

Clint moved away from her touch.

“I can handle myself.”

Her smile disappeared from her face as he avoided her concerned gaze.

“I know. But you don’t have to.” She seemed to hesitate for a second while facing his resistance, but then, “We keep moving.”

Clint looked back at her- pure, raw adrenaline pumping through his veins.

“Don’t do that.”

But Nat was now wearing her stubbornness as a shield.

“We keep moving.”

She repeated the words carefully.

“This is not Budapest, Natasha.”

“No, it’s not. I was the one bleeding then.”

Clint remembered.

_Nat grabbed his neck weakly to stand up and he looked at the bandage he had to improvise to make sure it was holding the bleeding of her leg efficiently._

_“Natasha.”_

_Her wound didn’t look well. Their possibilities of survival didn’t look well at all._

_“Tasha, can you hear me?”_

_“Yes, I can hear you. I’m bleeding not deaf”._

_“Good.”_

_“So, what’s the plan?”_

_“We keep moving.”_

Budapest was a different type of hell - one he could handle, but it felt a thousand years ago.

Nat was using her own jersey to plug the wound as much as she could, then she pulled on his chest with determination, forcing him to sit up from the wall.

“You can walk away from me as faster as you can once we handle that wound of yours, so stop acting like a child now and move.”

Clint didn’t respond, but he started walking.


End file.
